What Tortures Lie
by Oh-Johanna
Summary: A brief glimpse into the thoughts of Severus Snape in the harsh moment of reflection just after he has killed the once great Albus Dumbledore. The woman will forever remain a mystery.


Two forms stood motionless, locked in a battle of expectations, himself and the lake.

The leaves left no ripples as they fell on its glassy surface, a mere illusion of existence in the imagination of trees. This lake held no reflections, not that of branches or the moon of which he knew there must be. How else could such a dead and frozen lake produce such bitter terror, if not with the help of refractions that twist and turn to sooth the will of light?

His thoughts were pulled into submission by the image of heavy wrinkles drawing from those eyes the blue that beckoned him. And then a voice, absent of faith and void of answers, pleading, breaking through the silence.

_"Please." _It said. What else could be done?

The hesitation of movement, the pause before the lift of hand and wand, the forced moment of realization taking him by surprise...

_"Severus… Please…"_

The images reeled by. Wand raised, words uttered, a mass of cloak and beard crumpling to the ground… and this lake refusing to recognize his existence with even a reflection!

The night was warm and appealing – unjustly so – predictably so. This night was no different. It mimicked every other dusk till dawn he had spent near such a lake or such a moon. It seemed the earth held no surprises. So late was the hour since its inception that resignation to the bitter ways of men had settled in. Even in their dreams did men take aim and shoot as he had took aim and shot. Reality was etched into every fairytale told and he knew them all by heart. This moment was just another in a long line, and would not matter tomorrow nor the day next. In truth he had committed worse for far lesser things.

_"Can you imagine what tortures must lie within the folds of a human heart?"_

His head jerked at the sound of this voice but he was alone. It repeated itself in his mind. The answer came quietly into focus, lips attached to the words he envisioned.

A breeze brushed against his wrists and instinctively he felt the presence of the marking on his forearm. The wind slid down his sleeve, caressing the inked skin and he pulled his cloak tighter around him with folded arms, but the wind, who is thinner than cloth, found its way to there once more.

_"Does it hurt?"_ She had asked.

_"What? Don't be absurd." He pulled his arm from her reach. She remained unfazed concentrating on her writing._

_He eyed her as the constant sound of quill between her fingers scratched across the paper. In a moment of reverie she looked up. "Yes?"_

_"I am finding it difficult to concentrate." He tried to make his tone as suggestive to her quill as possible but as predicted she very politically chose to ignore it._

_"Is that all?"_

_He regarded her skeptically. "Should I incorporate more to my sentence?"_

_She smiled and patted his hand lightly with a quick "Do as you please," and continued writing. His eyes narrowed in focus where the puzzling action had occurred. When he looked up it was she who stared at him. "Yes?" he asked sardonically._

_"Might I see it?"_

_This startled him. "What?"_

_"Just for a moment. Then you may cover it up and we will never speak of it again. Only I have often wondered how deep the ink seeps."_

_His brows raised slightly as he slid the fabric of his robe towards his elbow. A small gasp reflected itself in her open lips and she moved towards him. Tentatively her fingers brushed along the lines of the mark, enraptured._

_His head tilted slightly as her hair brushed his chin. The scent of moth balls and Paris perfumes caught his senses. What madness lay behind this strange behavior? What cruel devise did those fingers hold that made his skin feel like newly doused coals?_

Beside the lake there was a sound; a crick in the grass where a stray wind had happened upon a resonate twig too soon; a shuffle of control and defeat and then the return of silence, all of which he took intimate notice but his eyes held to the water. Time was slipping, it could be only too soon that the unforgiving peace of this lake would leave him, and he would be forced to see to the business of consequences and unfinished obligations to which he owed his life, and theirs.

Something small landed on the exposed fingers peering from his robe and he eyed the creature wearily. In the dark it was difficult to distinguish the difference between butterflies, moths and certain types of fae and in flicking it away the animal clung to him so tightly that his knuckles were gashed open and filled with unseemly black liquid that mixed with his blood.

In his head_ he held the shriveled hand delicately in his own muttering rapidly the counter curse aloud and to himself cursing the old fool for being so short sighted. The skin hardening beneath his grasp, the light familiar chuckling from beyond the grey beard._

_Then came that look._

He tried to block it from his mind, turned to the east and shook the blood harshly from his hand.

_Desperation. A plea for him – for only him. "You must kill me."_

"What is taking so long?" he complained to the dark, swiftly circling his wand hovered above the knuckles and he watched them slowly return to their cold, white form.

_"You have taken too much for granted here, Master. I cannot – I don't want to do it anymore!"_

_"You agreed, Severus. You must do it."_

_Fire rose to his eyes and for a moment the two men glared and did not move a muscle. But it was no use. He stormed away, robes billowing violently behind him, striding across the grounds in such furious motions, brushing past students as he reached those large doors and nearly collided with her. They halted momentarily but without a word he continued his march down the corridor._

Now his memory could not make up it's mind and two distinct voices flitted between the passages of his ears.

His._ "You must kill me"_

And hers. _"Severus?"_

His. _"…Please."_

And hers. _"I want an explanation." She grabbed his arm but he shook her free, throwing her with force against the table._

_"…Severus…Please."_

_Those desperate eyes. Her eyes. For him – only for him._

In a moment of weakness he threw himself to the ground, his knees burying themselves deep within the dry bank just inches from the water, and still it did not move. He glared across it searching for something that did not resemble those eyes, but they captured him in this silence. Broke into the very essence of his lungs and bade his breath move quicker. Had it not been for those eyes this lake would be but a figment, that moon eclipsed from his view. Why did the hours move so slow, here in this wasteland of dying memories? Why must time defend his foe? Time..

_"We're running out of time, you know."_

_He stared at her blankly, not understanding her meaning. She stepped closer to him and let fall her hand gently around his forearm, where she knew he would feel it most, though black robe separated their contact._

_He rolled his eyes. "Yes, it must bring out the irrationality in – " Her other hand she brought to his cheek and this silenced him abruptly. He stood motionless as she continued her decent and saw rather than felt her lips upon his._

_For a moment there was no action. Eyes still wide he tried to comprehend what was happening, but then she brought her arms around to his hair and pulled him further to her. Hesitantly his own circled the small of her back in return, her breasts meeting his chest as his muscles tightening around her._

He lowered his head where he knelt and let his eyes swell with salt and water and remorse. His weaknesses griping him now at this moment of reflection. After a time his eyes had fully glossed over and there was nothing left to do. With a deep resentment for the cause he slowly closed his eyelids pushing from them a single drop that formed at the crease by his nose. The weight, it seemed was enough to break the connection and it fell, bursting as it hit the water. But this time, as thought waiting for its signal, the lake responded, erupting into strains of swells encircling the disturbed place where his tear had fallen. The ripples hit against the bank and moved back stretching across the dark water as he _watched._

_"Severus," said Dumbledore, turning to Snape, "you know what I must ask you to do. If you are ready ... if you are prepared ..."_

The mark on his arm twitched and danced in glides as it began to burn down to where the ink seeped deep through blood and veins. He stood, a quick charm putting him to right, and took one last look at the lake whose slight movement caught the reflection of the forests dark canopy.

"I am." He spoke to the wind, and was gone.


End file.
